Beneath Quicksand
by chinesefirethorn
Summary: Quicksand. Ruins. Heritage. Romance. A missing persons case sends Lee on one wild chase he'll never forget. An AU LeeGaara fic. Rating will go up later on.
1. The Living City

**Beneath Quicksand  
By chinesefirethorn**

**  
oooooooo**

**Chapter 1: The Living City**

**oooooooo**

In the middle of a desert, a city dreamed of life.

The mountainous figure of a cat covered its cracked towers from the sun, curling around the lands of an empire once great, now forgotten. As the sun set to the west, the shadows crawled down the grainy texture of the watchtowers before splashing through the streets until all was dark.

The rasp of sand against sand swept among the empty houses, most of them shapeless. Some were visible only from their roofs until the ledges of their second floors; some were completely buried. But all of them were submerged in the coarse grains.

Soon the night sky filled with lights.

It was past midnight when they arrived. The four of them came in their heavy boots, trudging their filth on the sand and talking in their coarse language. Their movements were muted, compressed in the city air as they walked along the buried avenues lined with gaping windows.

Someone lighted a match with a faint _scritch_. The walls of buildings glowed in the flame as did the features of the men before dying out as a cooler, lighter wind blew past. They were travellers, their cloaks fluttering in the slight breeze and revealing the thick linen pants they wore. One of them unhooked a hip flask and drank the last dregs of water from it. Light conversation ensued.

They would need to stop at the next oasis, of course. Yes, this place was giving everyone the chills. Does everyone remember the history of this place? Oh, it's nothing really. Just old wives' tales. Nothing to worry about really. But could they setup camp somewhere else? No. There's no better place to avoid the sandstorms. Oh.

For a moment, the only sound was the desert turning in an ever changing flow.

Then slowly, almost as inaudible as the turning of time, the sand began to move. It was a subtle motion at first. Long thin tendrils crawling up the pillars of the buildings that hadn't sunken into the sand while the outer edges of the ruined city caved inwards. It was only when the ground started to shift did the men notice the circular suction- with them as the epicentre.

At that moment, the ground erupted in a wave of sand and engulfed the men on the spot. The city was quickly turning into a quicksand with the men pushed deeper into it. There was a sickly scratching noise before the sand closed over their heads.

In an abandoned place, no one can hear you scream. But people forget to mention the thing that induces the scream in the first place. Under the ruins of the city the consciousness of the last king heard the dying screams of mouths filling with sand.

And deemed it good.

**oooooooo**

Lee woke up, groaned, and scratched himself. Soon enough, the exposed flesh was once again assaulted with a wave of bugs.

'I shouldn't have refused the caravan ride.' He thought unhappily. Being one of the best forensic experts in the region didn't always ensure the aesthetics of the city- a nice clean bed, a shower, and most importantly a heavy dose of bug repellent. Sometimes, justice needed such individuals in hot, sandy places like the Suna desert.

Jerking up and dispersing a variety of bugs, some he didn't even know existed, Lee crawled out of his tent and stretched in the moonlight. It seemed like it would be another day- no, night –of sweaty legwork and examination of substances he wouldn't go near to if he wasn't being paid to do so.

"Ah, if I don't find evidence tonight I'll…well, I'll keep searching without rest for another two days!" He declared to himself. "Even if I have to walk under the sun!"

He'd developed that habit as a teenager, mostly under the influence of his professor in legal theories back in the university. Gai-sensei, as he'd come to call since his graduation, was one of the best criminologists in the field. A retired one that is.

Lee had taken a shine to him ever since the man had given a speech on defending the innocent and destroying the malicious plans of the wicked. They were part of the extensive notes he'd taken in that one semester with- in his opinion- the best teacher and current colleague he'd ever have.

Frowning briefly, Lee slipped his hand under the green shirt he wore and took out his wrinkled memo pad from the back pocket of his second-hand linen pants. In it were the current notes he'd taken on the disappearance of a group of travellers who were last seen crossing the desert on their way back home.

The incident was only reported two days ago by the families of the men, wherein Lee was immediately sent out the day after. But the actual time of disappearance…well, Lee had calculated it to be a scale of a week, a week and a half before today.

'The problem with this desert,' Lee mused, 'is that there aren't any villages or cities in it.' On each side of the Suna desert though, was a thriving town, much smaller than the city Lee grew up in of course, but each one was rich in their own trade. Both towns had denied seeing the men during the week of their disappearance, with citizens of both strangely hesitant to answer questions.

It was also strange how the men, Lee had gathered they were about three to five, suddenly disappeared. The last town had seen them heading into the desert the afternoon of the alleged disappearance. Of course, nobody was sure they were really gone. One witness even went so far as to suggest that they were probably looking for gold at the old ruins.

That caught Lee's attention.

Despite the illogical guess, (Lee wondered how people could survive a week of no food and water. Nobody that desperate for gold would try that.) that was the only lead he'd gotten so far.

Shuffling the pages of his notes, Lee reviewed the details of the rumour the witness had given. There was said to be an old ruin of a city somewhere in Suna. It was also called Suna, which was confusing enough without trying to solve the case.

The ruin was said to be a place people avoided since there were supposedly cases of disappearances that also happened in that area. Mostly, those were cases involving looters and merchants.

It explained why the people aside from men's families were apathetic. Lee could only wonder why previous cases weren't reported to the branch of his agency in this part of the country. The local papers in each town didn't help his report either. There were only the obituaries to show that _someone died of unknown circumstances_.

Although he did find a report on the alleged ruins. The paper was an old one, probably back when the press was still new technology. It was a simple article about the history of a city. It said that some of the citizens of the towns surrounding the desert originated from there.

Lee sighed. Apparently factual journalism wasn't defined well yet at that time. The paper just contained the oral history passed down from interviewees comprising of old men and women. He reread the part about the city being buried by sand because of the last king's refusal to step down from his throne.

The one important sentence in it said, "And since then all outsiders are eaten by the King and reborn as slaves for his life ever living."

It sounded like bullock to him. Specially about the "life ever living part." It didn't make sense although he did get interesting hypotheses from the text. One of which was a secret organization that lives to fulfil the dead king's curse.

Giving one last ineffective swat at the bugs hovering around him, Lee sighed and started to pack up camp. From the directions given to him, he still had tonight to travel before he reached the ruins.

'I hope this won't be a cult killing case.' He thought before setting out again with both hands gripping his backpack straps.

The place where he camped was shifted and scattered until there was no trace of human life left.

**oooooooo**

** tbc-  
**


	2. A Sinking Feeling

** oooooooo****  
**

**Chapter 2: A Sinking Feeling**

** oooooooo  
**

It had been approximately four hours and fifty-two seconds since he left camp. Lee was absolutely positively sure that he was lost.

He had been following the directions closely with compass in hand and a piece of cloth tightly wrapped around his nose and mouth. At one point or two, he had encountered the famous sandstorms of Suna- fortunately managing to throw himself down on the ground and avoiding any unplanned flying lessons.

But after walking through all that, Lee was tired, hungry and he believed he had sand in his underwear. It was also hard to see with all the sand floating about.

Grimacing, Lee took off one of his boots and upturned it. Again, he wondered why, after cleaning out his other one, his firm hadn't seen to any mode of transportation at all. Even a camel would do- fat chance of that though.

"Cheapskates," he muttered, remembering how his boss told him to take it out of his already meagre salary.

Being a public investigator didn't pay much- literally that is. They even had to share office space with the local police! At least his room mate back at the station was a nice guy, a little lazy but Shikamaru was all right by Lee's standards.

A sharp blow to his foot snapped Lee out of his thoughts. "—guHYAAAHH!" Lee started hopping on one foot and cursed in a way Gai-sensei would scold him for.

Blinking blearily through the sand and the darkness of night, Lee managed to make out a jutting stone edge where his foot had connected. There was something written on it. Lee crouched down and set to work clearing the sand from the stone, which turned out to be a square tablet that refused to be dislodged.

The writing was visible now. Lee, after a few tries, managed to read it. It was similar in many ways to the language of today but there were some symbols that were unfamiliar or smudged into nonsense.

'Okay, so I can read the word Suna,' Lee thought while tracing his finger over the words, 'this over here looks almost like tree…no wait, it's person with a slash?. …I don't get it.' He pondered over that for a while and shrugged. He stood up, made a rough drawing of it on his notebook and went on walking.

Behind him, the tablet was submerged again in sand, showing only the word 'Suna' and the symbols for '365 paces north'.

** oooooooo**

The mountain was just a dark shape in the night. Lee knew if he hadn't seen it against the moon, he'd have stubbed his toes on it too. It looked small compared to the description of the news article about Suna. But Lee was sure this was it.

After careful inspection, he found one part of the mountain that was low enough to scale. He climbed up, lost his footing, and promptly slid down the other side.

Lee spat out sand and picked himself up from his sprawled position. He shook sand from his clothes, looked around him and smiled. He was in the right place. Time to work.

He took out his notebook, flashlight and pen, pausing to close the heavy duty pack on his back. Putting the flashlight in his mouth, he started walking around the place and inspecting the buried structures.

'The ruins cover a large area', Lee observed, 'This must have been something like those empires in history.' He listened for any sign of life. 'If a crime happened here, the criminal left a neat piece of work. No blood or anything at all.'

He flicked the thin beam of light over the sand floor to avoid stumbling on any debris…or worse, bodies. Lee resolved to search for possible places to hide in hopes that someone may have dropped a personal effect.

Soon, he came to a large circular catacomb that could almost pass for a tower with a little imagination. He searched near its bottom and found the entrance half buried in sand.

Lee eased himself into it, having to lie on his back and slide his body into the hole. At one point he thought he was going to be stuck but luckily the edges of the opening crumbled to let him fall down the last few meters to the floor.

The darkness was pierced by the flashlight to reveal a simple circular room with a dusty desk in one side and a staircase spiralling upwards. The interior was smaller than it seemed from outside.

After the beam of his flashlight bounced off archways and balconies further up the building, Lee concluded the extra space between this room and the outer wall to be rooms.

Looking back from where he came, Lee saw the reason for the abrupt fall and the minimum amount of sand inside. The opening he had thought was just a hole was actually barred with a heavy slab of stone- as if trying to keep something out…or something in.

The top of the stone had broken off from the rest with its pieces still scattered inside. Lee wondered if that was just a natural weathering of the stone or the work of someone from the outside.

'Either way', Lee decided, 'It's possible that someone had entered here recently despite the lack of footprints. If only the floor wasn't covered with sand...' Lee pulled his boots free from its sunken position in the sand, again. Ever since he stepped into the city, he'd been walking on sand that seemed intent on sucking in his boots.

Lee continued on his search, mindful to keep his ears perked for sounds. There didn't seem to be anything other than the shift of sand coming from the hole in the stone. It was probably his imagination, but the faint hiss sounded louder…with a distant roar mingling in it. 'Probably another sandstorm,' he thought.

The staircase was surprisingly stable, despite all the cracks along the wall it was attached to. Up and up went the steps. Occasionally, there were fragments jutting out from the side of the stairs.

Moving higher up, Lee found pathways that led to the balconies, though he didn't find anything of interest in the rooms he went into. They were strangely devoid of furniture. Upon reaching the top, the stairs extended past the ceiling and into a circular room much like the lobby, as Lee had come to call.

This particular room was as bare as the rest of the others except for one thing lying in the middle. Lee's flashlight shone faintly in the darkness.

"A…a casket…" Lee smiled weakly. He was partly expecting something like this- no one who 'disappeared' came back. It was logical to imagine them dead and buried among the ruins. But still.

Stepping closer to it, Lee trained his not-so-bright-as-I-thought light on the round grooves and faint markings on the casket. It looked like the symbols he had seen earlier on the tablet. The casket itself was held shut by two faded gold latches that were covered with a layer of dust.

Inhaling quickly, Lee unhooked the latches and held his flashlight at eye level.

It was a body, as he had expected. Lee felt his breath catch in his throat. What he hadn't expected was for it to be perfectly healthy- **alive** …and _awake_. It was a boy. No, a man in strange clothing. Two black-lined green eyes stared at him, and it was all Lee could do to repress the rising feeling of hysteria. _He should be dead_.

A small, terrified squeak erupted from his clenched teeth as one of the man's hands caught his wrist. He only realized his senses had numbed when they came back at the touch. And then he heard it- the roaring from below.

Lee tore his hand away and scrambled back. Somewhere along the way, his flashlight fell from his grip, clattering to the ground and rolling to the side. In the dim light, Lee could still see the outline of the man.

It was the last thing he saw before something broke under him and he fell into a rushing wave of sand.

** oooooooo**

**tbc**


	3. Explanations, of a Sort

** oooooooo****  
**

**Chapter 3: Explanations, of a Sort**

** oooooooo**

Heaviness. All around him, an insistent pressure held him in place. It fluctuated and melded into the contours of his body, the feeling similar to ants crawling all over him. Somehow, he could still breathe.

Lee wondered if he was dreaming. It was like floating in thick, coarse, moving water.

It seemed like hours before he felt the pressure around him ease up and eventually fall away from him in layers. The last grains of the substance scraped his fingers- he guessed it was sand from the texture.

Lee opened his eyes. His vision was blurry, head pounding with the sudden exposure to light. When he brought his hand up to rub his eyes, bits of sand scattered on his face and prompted him to shut his eyes reflexively. The next time he attempted to open them, he groaned- then yelled at the face peering into his, arm tensing for a punch.

His heart pounded wildly. All those wrinkles, beady black eyes and that toothless grin … it looked remarkably like his professor in forensics. For some reason, he could only think of one thing: a prune.

"Well, this one's healthy!" The face cackled and disappeared from view before he could throw a punch. "Send him up for appraisal. The Kazekage will want to see the newest arrival."

"Kaze…kage? Newest arrival?" Lee tried to make sense of what was going on. His voice sounded clogged, a grainy texture lingering on his tongue. 'Wait a minute, I'm supposed to be solving a missing persons case- possibly a homicide. Now what am I doing here?'

His thoughts were jumbled, but pieces of memory were coming back- the search for Suna, the empty houses, the casket, and the sand. …And that person. Lee couldn't really remember much about him except for his eyes. He shivered.

'But that's impossible! There's no way something so absurd could be real.' He closed his eyes and wished he'd stop dreaming. A different line of thought entered his mind as the sound of a door being unbolted echoed throughout the room. 'Where did the criminals get sand-using weapons?'

Of course! Yes, that explained it. His eyes blinked open again. They were probably using advanced technology. And he had almost believed the sand attacked him all on …its…own. A cluster of sand hovered on the edge of his line of sight, unsupported.

Lee's hands gripped the sides of a cold, hard substance before he sat up quickly and froze. It took him only a moment to realize that he was sitting on a stone slab with just a knotted loincloth on.

The room was lit by a large furnace a few feet away. Four other slabs occupied the space to his left, though they were all empty. And beside him was a bent old man with a staff in hand, pale grey hair tangled in messy puffs. But what really drew his attention was the white beard trailing down the venerable's torso. It was cleaner and looked generally more cared for than the strands in other parts. To complete the look, said wizened one was wearing a loose white robe. Hopefully with something underneath. Lee knew he must be dreaming when the man started to argue with the cluster of sand.

Angry hissing, like a cat's, filled the room in varying pitch. "What do you mean he's not here? I just saw him moments ago," the man retorted, waving his staff at the sand. The wood passed through the grains harmlessly. "Well who's going to assign him?" The staff swung towards a more solid victim and prodded Lee hard on the shoulder.

"Ow!" Lee rubbed the abused skin. The old man was stronger than he looked, if his quickly reddening shoulder was any proof.. "Watch where you point that thing. Please."

The stunned expression and the cackling laughter that followed, unnerved Lee. "You'll do well here, boy. That politeness might get you assigned to a good post. Or even a decent one." The old man turned back to the sand, which started hissing softly and formed itself into a swirling ball. "So, the kid's in charge today, eh? We'll see how he does. Come on boy, looks like I have to guide you myself."

Lee was inching halfway off the other side of the table when the sand ball suddenly spread out and held his ankles in place. The resounding thud and "oof" bounced off the walls, followed by a sharp whack and someone yelling hoarsely to hurry up.

** oooooooo**

The way to the catacombs was filled with questions on Lee's part, and impatient answers on that of the man he now knew as Ini-Herit Rasui+. The moment Lee introduced himself and asked about the missing people, the old man had wacked him again. He also refused to call Lee by his name.

The walk up the stone steps had brought them out of what Lee considered a cellar turned mortuary, and into a vast courtyard. Sand served as malleable flooring, clumping around pillars and burying the base of a large statue near the wall across from the room they came from. Around it, round structures populated the grounds with some of them curling into points at the top. A net of elevated walkways connected buildings from various heights. The high sand wall in the distance was a familiar sight- one that had his body aching in memory.

Lee thought it was eerily similar to those old adventure films. Minus the dashing treasure hunter and the kohl-eyed women.

"I told you already, boy, this _is _Suna," Rasui frowned as they passed through an empty hallway. Lee couldn't help noticing how fond the architects around here must be of circular pillars. In the middle of the courtyard, a raised dais cast a short shadow on the sand.

Lee stopped gaping at the chiseled markings on the ceiling. "But- But the last time I was here, that- and _that_ -wasn't there! ...Well, it was there, but cracked and crumbling. And my name is Lee," he sputtered. The look that Rasui gave him was clearly degrading. Lee stopped pointing at the statue vaguely resembling a raccoon- a demonic one that is.

The old man thrust his staff at the statue. "That, boy, is the guardian of this village. And it's not only some hurly-burly legend like other creatures." Staff end lowering, Rasui looked older than he did at first. "...It's a power like no other, passed down among those the Kage blood. Shuukaku."

Turning around abruptly, Rasui tapped the tip of his staff on the ground twice before continuing on towards one of the surrounding buildings. Lee had a feeling that he was told a lot more than what he should know. "Ano...I still don't understand what's going on, Rasui-ojiisan. Am I in some part of Suna that's been rebuilt? I thought the city was abandoned long ago."

The hallway turned sharply to the left, where it connected to an arched opening. Lee consciously adjusted the loincloth. He really wished that his clothes had been left on. Rasui gestured towards the entrance to the building. "Well, go on. I'll explain everything while we get you ready."

** oooooooo**

"The workings of the Kazekage," Rasui began as a frozen Lee was pushed towards three smiling ladies, "is hard to explain to outsiders like you. When you appeared here, you immediately became a servant of Suna, specifically the Kazekage's."

At this point, Lee was stripped of what little clothing he had on despite protests, and led by one of the women to a tub of damp sand, which he gladly sunk into. The women were all dressed in sheer clothing that did little to ease his embarrassment and discomfort. But despite Lee's vision of such desert flowers, the women's eyes weren't lined with anything remotely dark. He settled for concentrating on Rasui's explanation to stop his wandering thoughts.

"You aren't the first one either. Just a few sunsets back, five were also brought back from your time which, by the way, is a relative issue here. The time you know is the time that _will be_ for us." Sitting in one of the plush seats, Rasui scowled when he sank into the material. "...Insufferable. In my day, we had chairs that didn't try to swallow you," he muttered. Lee had to summon all his concentration to hear the other, since he was now being scrubbed clean with the sand. Thankfully, it was finely ground and wet.

Rasui waved a hand and had one of the attending women bring him a bowl of water. He sipped carefully. "On the other hand, it also coexists with ours. To put it simply, everyone you see here are those that will be buried when the Kazekage dies." He waved away Lee's cries of surprise and disbelief. "...No, no, it's true. You could say that we are stuck as we are. At least, until the Kazekage decides to move on. You see, when someone with as much power as he has and as strong a will as he does, that person has a chance to bend history. And with Shuukaku's powers, our ruler has done just that."

It was hard for Lee to accept everything he said. "...Then, it's a curse?" He was nudged upwards by one woman and poured with oil by the other, the latter taking care not to drip any on his hair. He was given a beige sleeveless top with a wide but high collar and loose dark pants, gathered at the waist but wide at the ends. Lee couldn't help but notice the trim on the hem- circular gold stitching similar to the architecture of Suna.

On top of it all, the women helped him into an open dark brown coat. The layers were then bound by a long strip of woven hemp that wrapped around Lee's waist twice. The woman to his right untucked a few inches of the layers to drape loosely over the rope belt.

"Don't be ridiculous. If you need to know the details, you can ask the Kazekage himself." Rasui said, finishing his bowl and nodding in approval at Lee's clothes. "That's proper desert wear." He used his staff to lever himself up. "And now, we'll get you judged. Maybe you'll get to visit me sometime if the boy gives you a good position." He nodded to the women who returned it with a bow.

Lee brushed back his bangs. "Fine. But I'm getting answers from this prince boy." It was one thing he was good at. One that he'd do by force if necessary. Whatever happened, he wasn't going to be made a slave to some royalty. 'Gai-sensei, if...no _when _I get back, I'll be the only person in my batch who's interrogated a prince!'

He lowered the fist he'd been youthfully holding up when Rasui whacked him and dragged him away from the discreetly giggling women.

** oooooooo**

The next corridor they reached was populated with muscled men in topless versions of Lee's new clothes. Most of them had purple markings on their bodies, which Rasui explained as the markings of Shuukaku. Apparently, they were something between priests and bodyguards of the Shuukaku and its clan hosts.

A cloud of sand met them in front of a wide set of steps. It frisked Lee briefly, but long enough to leave the man shivering. "What do you want from me?!" Lee rubbed his arms to get rid of the feeling of ants crawling on his skin, taking a couple of steps away from the floating mass. The sand merely flowed up and past the open double doors at the top of the stairs.

"You'll get used to it." Rasui cackled. "It's the Kage family's way of getting around without physically being there. Seems like the boy has taken an interest in you." He prodded Lee's back with the knob of his staff. "Well go on. I'll follow in a bit."

Lee looked at the open doors and set his face firm. He nodded to Rasui then made his way up the steps. The doors led to a surprisingly small room. Lee had expected a wide court like the ones he saw in documentaries about the Fire Country's old daimyo system.

At one end of the room, a pile of cushions formed a chair of sorts. In it was a robed figure reading a scroll that covered his face. Lee was sure that it was the prince, though he couldn't determine the other's age.

Seeing no other person in the room, Lee took a guess at Suna customs and sat up on his knees in front of the 'throne'. He spent a few seconds uncomfortably squirming in place before he finally got tired of waiting for the prince to notice him. "A-ano...excuse me...your Kageness," Lee visibly winced at his poor choice of words. This was his first time to meet royalty. "What exactly am I here-"

"Silence." The voice was even but somehow muffled better than a shout. No doubt this was the voice used by people in power to influence others. The prince lowered the document and rolled it back into the scroll ends in fluid movements. Then his eyes flickered to Lee's.

For a second, Lee couldn't figure out where the thumping came from. Then as he finally released his breath, he realized it was his own heartbeat. It was him! The creepy boy from the casket. Lee's mouth worked soundlessly as the prince watched him.

He'd never forget those eyes, currently fixing him with a cool detached stare. It was ironic that they looked closer to Lee's envisioned desert beauties. The lines encircling them didn't look like coal though. More like a tattoo of sorts. But they added an intimidating air along with the fiery-red array of spikes on the boy's head.

The prince carefully stood up from where he was curled on the cushions. He padded on socked feet towards Lee, ignoring his wide-eyed stare. After circling around him, the prince stopped before him and knelt on one knee. Lee shied away slightly, trying to work out what to say to the other. 'I know this sounds crazy, but I met you before. I think you were supposed to be dead then...' He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but heard the rustle of sand nearby. He pressed his lips together tightly.

Strong but strangely gentle fingers pulled his face back up. "Quiet." The boy said, almost whispering. He could practically feel the dark green eyes, almost blue in this light, inspecting him. It was probably rude, but Lee continued to stare back. The situation felt...surreal. Both intimate and chillingly clinical. Finally his chin was released and the prince retreated to his seat.

"Wait! ...Ah...I mean, I just got here so could you answer a few...questions...?" Lee's burst of babble had earned him another piercing stare. He didn't really care. If this boy was really the prince, then surely he could do some magic mumbo-jumbo with the sand and send him home.

The boy looked as if he was seriously considering it, glancing at Lee sideways with that unreadable expression. Then he turned his back to Lee. "Later."

Prince or not, Lee was beginning to think he could only speak one word at a time. He stood and tried to approach him but was suddenly held back by clusters of sand on his arms and legs.

"Later," said the prince again. "We will talk in my chambers." He did a quick gesture that made the sand release its suddenly limp charge. "You will be assigned for my private use."

Lee straightened then started to back away. "You're putting me in a HAREM?!" He shut his eyes and tried to wake up from this dream turned nightmare. He opened his eyes to see the boy looking at him strangely but with a trace of amusement on his face.

"...As an armed escort." The prince seemed to add to his previous sentence. He settled back onto the cushions and picked up a gourd-shaped object the size of his hand. The clear ring of glass on glass was succeeded by two of the bodyguard-priests Lee saw earlier. They bowed to the boy before motioning for him to follow them out of the room.

Lee hesitantly turned away from the other before quickly bowing and walking towards the guards. He'd made a fool of himself more than once already.

The seriously spoken words of "But if you want, I can put you in one." turned his walk into a run.

tbc

* * *

+INI-HERIT: "he who brings back the distant one"; RASUI: "dream" 


End file.
